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Updated: June 19, 2025
'Yes, I will come if you wish it, she answered. And the next moment she was gone round the corner of the house, while I laughed to think of the excellent watch these gallant gentlemen were keeping. M. de Cocheforet might have been with her in the garden, might have talked with her as I had talked, might have entered the house even, and passed under their noses scot-free.
As the mountains which they had known all their lives sank and faded behind us, and we entered on the wide, low valley of the Garonne, their hopes sank and faded also sank to the dead level of despair. Surrounded by guards, a mark for curious glances, with pride for a companion, M. de Cocheforet could have borne himself bravely; doubtless would bear himself bravely still when the end came.
The next moment the outriders splashed me, the coach was a hundred paces ahead, and I was left chilled and wondering, foreseeing the worst, and no longer in any mood for Zaton's. Such a revelation of such a man was enough to appal me, for a moment conscience cried out that he must have heard that Cocheforet had escaped him, and through me. But I dismissed the idea as soon as formed.
She stepped out of the shadow as she spoke and there, the thing was done. As I had planned, so it had come about. Once more I was crossing the meadow in the dark to be received at Cocheforet, a welcome guest. The frogs croaked in the pool and a bat swooped round us in circles; and surely never never, I thought, with a kind of exultation in my breast had man been placed in a stranger position.
'Madame de Cocheforet, I will not She raised her hand with a strange patient expression in her face. 'Hush! please, she said. 'Hush! you trouble me. The fire blazed up as she spoke, and she rose slowly from it, and with a lingering look at it went out, leaving me to stand and stare and listen in the middle of the floor.
'That should be easy, I said. The Cardinal looked at me. 'Chut, man! what do you know about it? he answered bluntly. 'It is whispered at Cocheforet if a soldier crosses the street at Auch. In the house are only two or three servants, but they have the countryside with them to a man, and they are a dangerous breed. A spark might kindle a fresh rising.
Even M. de Cocheforet, who was at first inclined to build on it, gave up hope when he heard that it came only by way of Montauban; whence since its reduction the year before all sort of CANARDS against the Cardinal were always on the wing. 'They kill him about once a month, our host said with a grin.
A furlong farther on, a cottage, burned by some carelessness in the night, lay a heap of black ashes. Louis ran beside us weeping; the last brown leaves fluttered down in showers. And between my eyes and all, the slow steady rain fell and fell. And so I left Cocheforet. Louis went with us to a point a mile beyond the village, and there stood and saw us go, cursing me furiously as I passed.
I only knew that the plot was thickening, and began to feel the eagerness of the chase. Of course, if the matter had not to do with Cocheforet, it was no affair of mine; but though it seemed unlikely that anything could bring him back so soon, he might still be at the bottom of this. And, besides, I felt a natural curiosity.
'I am going to tell you, I replied, speaking so that every word might fall distinctly on her ears, and sating my eyes the while on her proud face. I had never dreamed of such revenge as this! 'About a fortnight ago, M. de Cocheforet left here at night with a little orange-coloured sachet in his possession. She uttered a stifled cry, and drew herself stiffly erect.
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